And Silence Deafens
by Old Emerald Eye
Summary: Alice doesn't win the fight in the Alaskan field. She barely even tries. She's been running out of things to fight for, and finding a graveyard of planes where there should have been community and life and sanctuary, well . . .


**Title: **And Silence Deafens

**Pairing:** Claire/Alice

**Summary: **Alice doesn't win the fight in the Alaskan field. She barely even tries. She's been running out of things to fight for, and finding a graveyard of planes where there should have been community and life and sanctuary, well . . .

**TW:** expression of some slight suicidal tendencies. Nothing explicit.

* * *

Alice doesn't win the fight in the Alaskan field. She barely even tries.

She's been running out of things to fight for, and finding a graveyard of planes where there should have been community and life and sanctuary, well . . .

That doesn't stop her from reaching for guns at the sound of something ... an animal? It's not a bird - she'd recognise the rasp of feathers. At least she thinks she would – reacclimatising to baseline human senses is a slow process that she's never certain is complete enough to keep her from making a fatal mistake. The way the world is, one false negative in her identification skills, one hair too much overconfidence, is enough to leave her dead.

She isn't ready for that, not yet. Even if she has no idea what she's doing after finding Claire and the kids at Arkadia. Which isn't where it should be.

She's too slow on the draw, caught on the backfoot with her hands still in her coat, guns only halfway clear of their holsters when she's tackled.

Nothing infected – nothing but what Matt become, but nothing that size could hide here – moves that fast and quiet, so whatever she's facing is a human, albeit one that seems to be a good part encrusted dirt and running on instinct forged sometime in the last ice age.

Human yes, but humanity dubious. Now who else could that apply to?

She's getting sidetracked. She shouldn't. Alice uses her elbows to block the first wild swings at her head and torso, and her head to make a little space when their arms are both low. It hurts a lot more than it should, but her arms are freed. And that means she can stop backing away and go on the offensive. First opening she gets, she'll -  
She is slammed back into fuselage, drops and plays dead. It's only half an act - her brain has been bound around her skull enough in the last couple of minutes to stand in for the percussion section of an entire marching band. Her opponent lets her fall – makes distance as she goes down to avoid a counter attack. Alice lets her body roll till it stills, like a ragdoll with its strings cut.

She's down on her side, back to the plane and facing out towards the sea. Her hair covers her face, but she keeps her eyes to slivers on the off chance that the cover it provides is insufficient. Not the best position she's ever found herself in, over the years but so far nothing eaten her, which is better than most people - nevermind.

Her ambusher is suddenly half on top of her, face pressed into the exposed underside of her throat. Alice regrets her decision immediately, but she can't afford to do anything about it now. Startling them is the best way to get those teeth buried in the meat and viscera that Alice depends on for quite a few vital functions.

Staying still rewards her with huff of warm, moist air against her skin, which remains unbroken and whole. Her opponent seems less aggressive now that Alice has abandoned all signs of fight, but still somewhat annoyed. At Alice's presence? Her proximity? Or simply existence in general? Alice has had days like that. The things she fights usually don't have much in the way of feelings, so this ... empathy ... is new.

Some decision reached, they drag Alice away from the plane – a large enough specimen, she notes in passing, a two engine, four seater, and here long enough to rust orange despite the traces of hotrod detailing on the nose – and away from her dropped weapons too. She still has at least one knife – it's pressing into her back – and the blades in her boots are probably still there, but reaching them in a hurry is not going to be fun.

They stop, after somehow finding the single bush within a hundred miles to drag Alice through, in a makeshift campsite in the lee of a small rise hidden from the view of the water. It fits what Alice has seen so far – an improvised collection of what has to be the interior of any number of plane's interiors circling a firepit and a tarp. It looks both temporary enough to be constructed in the last week and well worn in. None of it looks like the promised Arkadia.

Alice is dropped, half on the tarp and half on some scraggly grass, and promptly abandoned in favour of gathering scraps of wood into the charred pit. She doesn't take it personally, takes the space to watch ... her? Yes, her attacker set about starting a fire, alternating her attention between the flint and Alice's spot on the ground. Alice keeps her eyes to a sliver and her breathing slow.

It's hard for her to make out, between the hair covering her eyes and the dirt coating her assailant's clothes, body and long, unkempt hair like a particularly ingrained shroud, but is that ... could it be ... Claire?

She's frowning at the wood that stubbornly remains unlit despite the shower of sparks. Alice has seen that expression at lot during late evening planning sessions or when things weren't going the way that she thought they should. Which had been often enough, given that the convoy was traveling through miles and miles of sand and desert the entire time Alice was with them, and if there was something that didn't agree with combustion engines it was sand and heat.

It's definitely Claire.

From the look of it, she's switched the target of her aggression to the piece of flint. It's not that Alice doesn't enjoy a good fight, especially when it's with Claire, but she's tired. And getting cold. And she's pretty sure she's got a twig halfway down her pants and new rips in her jacket that she'll have to sew up now that she doesn't already have the t-virus running through her veins. She doesn't even want to think about the state of her hair.

What she wouldn't give for a hot shower. Even a lukewarm one would be a luxury in this day and age, but there's not much chance of either here.

When the flame finally catches, Claire gets something blue from a pile of what looks like scavenged materials. She props it against a rock, where it stays, half folded over. It's a hot water bottle. Claire flops onto a log across the fire from Alice, and they settle in to wait.

Half an hour or so passes in stillness and quiet as the sun fades and the grey sky grows darker above them. Alice's coat keeps off the worst of the chill, but there's a strip of skin where her shirt has pulled loose and ridden up that is freezing. She wants to pull it down, but Claire is perched on her like she, not Alice, was the one with the virus in her veins. The paleness of Claire's breath against the growing dusk is the only sign she gives that she feels the cold.

The bottle, rubber slightly charred and with marks of having been used this way before, is removed and dropped onto her stomach. Alice can't contain the huff of air that's forced out, but Claire ignores it in favour of retreating back to the fire and curling up. Like a skittish, half feral cat.

That's two steps in the right direction then. She's found Claire, and she's not about to freeze to death. It's progress.

Today has been busy all around. She didn't win what was in all probability a life and death fight at the time, but she didn't lose either. She's had worse days.  
. . . Alice decides to go with it.


End file.
